SOC. You have come to take me to my destiny? I am more than willing. But I thought I would be allowed another day or two.

ANDR. I am here to take you to your destiny. If indeed you are willing.

SOC. I just said that I was. I may criticize the state, but I do not presume to place myself above it.

ANDR. The destiny I am here to offer you may be different from the one you suppose.

SOC. Different? I would never accept a life that prevented me from praising good and denouncing evil. And placing myself beyond the state would put me in just such a compromised position.

Andr. Yet you would accept death, and via hands you know are unjust.

SOC. Ah, so you are indeed here to try to persuade me against death. This is the destiny you wish me to avoid?

ANDR. Yes.

SOC. You are not the first suitor to make that proposition.

ANDR. I know.

SOC. Such a proposition obviously has much to commend it.

ANDR. Yes.

SOC. But I would tell you what I tell all such noble souls: attractive as such a proposition is to me, I cannot accept it. For such would entail my commission of an evil at least as great as that of those who wish to end my life. It would say that I was lying when previously I maintained that criticism of the state, to be taken seriously, required an ultimate acceptance of the authority of the state, flawed as it may be. My fleeing now, evading this authority, would make all of that a lie.

ANDR. Suppose I were to tell you that you could leave this prison, and live, without flouting the authority of the state?

SOC. I would say you are dreaming, and you are wrong to tempt an old man with an impossible dream. How could I possibly leave here, and not show contempt for the decision of the state that I must die here?

ANDR. What if your body did die here, but you did not?

SOC. You mean my soul would live, but my material essence would die? There are those who claim that the two — soul and body — are inseparable. And when one dies, so must the other. Do you deny that?

ANDR. I mean to say, your material essence and your soul would be saved, and would live. And another material essence of you would die here, absent any spirit.

SOC. How could that be? Are you suggesting my soul will inhabit another body?

ANDR: No. I am saying both bodies — the one with your soul, the other without — would be yours.

SOC. As far as I know, my material body is unique — there is but one of me, not two.

ANDR. Have you ever seen twins?

SOC. Yes. They do seem to have the same physical body at birth, I grant you. Are you telling me that there is a twin of me, whom I do not know of? Even so, by this age — my age — we would likely not look exactly the same. The world wears our bodies in different ways.

ANDR. No, as far as I know, your mother did not bear you and a twin. But are you seeing where this may lead?

SOC. No, am I not. For even if I had a twin, and even if he were willing to trade places with me here at this late hour, and die in my stead, when the ship from Delos arrives, it would not be right for me to allow that to happen. It would be an unspeakable act of cowardice for me, an act of evil upon the body and soul of my brother. That would be far worse than the evil of my simply escaping.

ANDR. Yes, it certainly would be. But what if it were only his body that was left in your place? And what if he were not truly your brother — not born of your mother? And what if he were not truly alive — just a perfect copy of your body, in every way but one? What if it had no soul? It would then not be truly intelligent, not fully alive.

SOC. Leaving aside, for a moment, the impossibility of what you are proposing, where would you take me?

ANDR. Somewhere close to Ithaca and Syracuse.

SOC. But those places are not close to one other. How can a third place — your destination — be close to both?

ANDR. In my world, they are close.

SOC. Yet you are in my world, where Ithaca and Syracuse are not close.

ANDR. Yes.

SOC. In what manner is your world different from mine, that Ithaca and Syracuse are close in yours?

ANDR. My world is the future.

SOC. Are you saying your city is more advanced in the crafts of transport than this one, and you possess there a new means of conveyance, some swift ship, which permits more rapid travel between Ithaca and Syracuse, and that is why you contend that they are close?

ANDR. There are new means of transport in my world, but they are not the most profound reason why I say the two cities are close.

SOC. Cities? Ithaca is an island, not a city.

ANDR. Yes, in this world. Your world. Your time.

SOC. Your time is different from mine? Different from this time? And that is what you meant when you said your world is the future?

ANDR. Yes.

SOC. You claim to have travelled here from the future? Forgive me. I appreciate your visit at this very late hour. But only a god or a liar would make such a claim. And my fellow Athenians who have sentenced me would be happy to tell you what I think of the gods.

ANDR. I assure you, I am neither god nor liar.

SOC. Travelling from one age to another cannot be the same as travelling from one place to another, in the same time. I think the two — time and space — are very different.

ANDR. That is true.

SOOC. I do not understand how such travel across time could be possible.

ANDR. Could we return to that question later, and consider now how I might help you, were such travel possible?

SOC. You wish to proceed on the basis of an impossible premise? I suppose such a conversation is preferable to thinking about the hemlock.

ANDR. My point, precisely.

SOC. Is your world, then, the same as this world, except that your world is in the future?

ANDR. I would say so, generally, yes.

SOC. Then, if that is true, you would know that I have indeed died — that I will die, in the next few days. For, that, truly is what I intend to do.

ANDR. We know, in my world, that a body identified as Socrates indeed died after consuming hemlock. I am here to convince you that that body need not be yours.

SOC. So far, although I can only be grateful for your ingenuity and good intentions, I cannot say that I am persuaded.

ANDR. May I continue my attempt?

SOC. If you wish.

ANDR. Let us look again, then, at the nature of souls and life, and examine, if you will, the nature of copies. Do you agree that a statue could be made of you, of such precise resemblance that it could be mistaken for you when viewed at a distance?

SOC. Yes, I have seen such statues of others. When painted with colors of proper hue, they can quite easily be mistaken for the human being whose image they embody, especially when viewed in dim lighting, in twilight or pre-dawn hours, or, as you say, at a distance.

ANDR. Good. Do you think it possible, then, that such a statue could be made of someone — of you — but comprised not of stone but of living material?

SOC. Yes, I have on occasion seen fine work of that sort constructed not of stone but of wood. Is that what you mean?

ANDR. The replica I have in mind for you would be comprised of something closer to wood than stone, yes.

SOC. But no one, on close examination of a wooden replica of me, could possibly mistake it for me, or my body. Wood is material that is no longer alive; my body is still alive. I suppose there would be more similarity between wood — material, once alive, from a tree — and my body, once dead, and no longer alive.

ANDR. Yes.

SOC. But, nonetheless, surely no one could confuse a wooden replica of me, however well rendered, with my dead body?

ANDR. No — no one could confuse those two. But in the case of wood, could you imagine a branch, pulled from a tree, that was still in part alive?

SOC. Yes. It could be placed in water, and might live for a time. Or, depending upon the tree, its branch could be placed in soil, where it might take root, and eventually give rise to a new tree.

ANDR. Exactly. Now, do you suppose it possible for flesh to exist in that same relationship to your body, as a branch newly pulled from a tree?

SOC. Flesh taken from a living body is to that living body as a branch pulled from a tree is to the tree?

ANDR. Yes.

SOC. But the branch would be mistaken by no one for the tree. Nor would flesh be confused with an entire body, dead or alive.

ANDR. True. But just as that branch, properly planted, and if it were from the right kind of tree, could yield an entire tree, would you grant that flesh, taken from a body and properly treated, could be grown into an entire body?

SOC. You mean, inserting a severed arm into some special soil such that an entire body would come forth? I have never heard of such a thing, outside of stories of the gods, and you already know my opinion of gods and men and their stories.

ANDR. Are you acquainted with the story of Cadmus, who raised soldiers from the teeth of dragons sown in the soil?

SOC. Yes. It is at best a useful myth.

ANDR. Suppose I were to tell you that one way in which my future world is different from this one is that we can make some of those mythic tales come true?

SOC. You can raise soldiers from the teeth of dragons?

ANDR. No, but we can raise dragons from the teeth of dragons, if the teeth have been preserved in the right way. We call them ‘dinosaurs’ — ‘terrible lizards’. We can sometimes take something from the teeth — their essence — and insert it in a very special kind of soil–

Sierra sighed. That was where the fragment ended. She looked

again at the Preface–

Her outer doorbell sang. Damnit. Who could that be, this

time of night? She looked at her watch — 12:17am/4 April 2042.

She touched another device on her couch, and flicked on her guest

display, on the far wall. Jesus — she’d forgotten completely

about Max– No, actually, she had not forgotten. He wasn’t due

back in New York until tomorrow evening–

The bell sang again. She cursed, put down the dialog, and

buzzed him in.

He was up the stairs of her brownstone, and at her door, on

the second floor, in seconds. She turned from the screen and

walked to the old-fashioned peephole in her door. She peered

through it, just for good measure. She had to admit, Max looked

good.

She opened the door.

He walked in grinning, a present of some sort in one hand, a

bottle of wine in the other.

“I thought you were coming back tomorrow,” Sierra said.

“I got an upgrade to an HST,” Max said, still smiling. “Long

story, short flight — 45 minutes in the air!”

“I didn’t know they had hypersonic service from Iceland,”

Sierra said. She realized that her voice sounded a little icy, too.

Max seemed undaunted. “Well, that’s part of the long story. A

friend of a friend at the conference I was attending said I could

get a free upgrade — part of some promotion Iceland is doing — if

I took an overnight flight tonight. Except, of course, with that

quick jump into the atmosphere and back, I was here in New York

well before I left Reykjavic. Incredible timing — I thought I’d

surprise you!”

Sierra nodded. “Bad timing, for me.”

“Am I interrupting something?” Max asked, finally getting it.

“Yeah, but not what you think.”

Max managed another smile. “Oh, I’m sure I know what I’m

interrupting — the dissertation, right? Look, I’m sorry. I know

how hard you’re working on it–”

Sierra looked at him. She felt a little bad, now. He did

look appealing, standing there with wine and a gift. “All right,

come on in, but not for long.”

They walked to the kitchen table. Max put his package and

bottle down. He reached for her.

Sierra had forgotten that she was wearing only a robe, and

partially open, at that. Make that two things she had forgotten

tonight– no, she had not forgotten about Max’s arrival, he had

come home a day sooner than expected. But she didn’t realize she

had forgotten about the open robe until Max put his arm around her,

on the inside of the robe. The crook of his arm brushed against

the underside of her breast. His hand moved slowly down the small

of her back. She knew this would be a little bit longer than “not

for long”…

***

She brought him up to date on the whole bizarre evening, in

interludes of conversation over several hours.

“The Millennium Club?” Max said with something between

admiration and awe. “I’m still in touch with one of the profs

on my doctoral committee — he took me there to lunch last year.

They have holdings in Greek and Latin to rival Harvard’s.” Max was

an Assistant Professor of Analogic Studies at Fordham University

himself, and by virtue of that expertise, had more than a passing

knowledge of the ancient world and its modes of communication.

“You know, I never bought that Socrates just allowed himself to die, when

Crito was giving him a way to escape.”

“I’ve always felt the same way,” Sierra said, playing absently

with Max’s long hair. “Why not opt to live, and continue your

critique, your philosophy? But, you know, time travel and cloning

— that’s what the ‘visitor’ was hawking — no way they could have

been available in Socrates’ time, outside of science fiction.”

“Time travel’s a tall order in any time,” Max said, “no doubt

about that. But if it’s ever worked out in some future time, then

people would be able to get back to our time, Socrates’ time, any

time, probably just as easily — the arrival time would likely make

no difference, once the technology became available.”

Sierra considered. “Good point … They’ve been working for

years on some kind of artificial wormhole in California, haven’t

they?”

“Yeah — based on some equations that Kip Thorne worked out

decades ago. But as far I know, it’s all just theoretical.”

“Better than nothing,” Sierra said, and kissed his neck. “Ok.

But what about cloning?”

“Growing a twin of Socrates?” Max shrugged. “Who knows. But

I do know that the ancients had a lot more knowledge than we give

them credit for. So much was lost when the Library at Alexandria

was burned — and it happened more than once. So, granting that

they didn’t have lasers, or electron or even analog microscopes.

But they understood farming. They understood deliberate breeding

to improve crops and livestock. So, who knows what they knew —

maybe they knew how to put a swatch of human cells into some

kind of medium, where it could grow into a clone. Anyway … even if

they didn’t know squat about cloning, if this ‘Andros’ was really

from the future, he could have brought back light-weight

equipment with him — hey, we have already have that, today.”

Sierra moved down, and kissed Max, full on the lips. He had

a way of making the surely impossible seem less so. It was at times

like this that she understood just why she let him in in the

middle of the night.

***

She was in Thomas’ office the next morning. “The librarians

in ancient Alexandria make no reference to this, or anything like

it. No other reference to anyone named ‘Andros,’ either,” Thomas

said, studying his copy of the fragment, while Sierra did the same

with hers.

“Jowett says the Alexandrian lists are unreliable,” she

replied.

“Yeah, but he was saying they included shams and spoofs, not

that they overlooked Platonic dialogs that were real.”

“Unreliable is unreliable,” she maintained. “Lies of

commission, lies of omission, just plain mistakes — they all add

up to the same thing.”

Thomas nodded, slightly.

“The ‘Ed.’ is really more key than the Alexandrians, isn’t

he,” Sierra continued. “We have only his word for it — or hers —

about the carbon dating. The translation looks accurate enough,

but we have only Ed’s word about the original Greek words,

as well.”

“You found fault with some of the translation?”

“No big deal,” Sierra replied, “but here, and here, for

instance.” She pointed to two places in the manuscript.

“‘Comprised’ is a little overkill, pseudo-intellectual.

‘Composed’ would have been fine.”

Thomas chuckled, approvingly.

“The translator is definitely a ‘he’,” he said.

“You know him?”

Thomas nodded.

“That’s why you have confidence that it’s not a forgery?”

Sierra asked.

“I saw the original,” Thomas replied. “I helped with the

translation. ‘Comprised,’ if I remember correctly, was mine.”

***

Thomas prepared roasted green tea. Sierra sipped, enjoying

the aroma as much as the flavor.

“The original manuscript was breathtaking,” Thomas continued.

“I was amazed it could survive so long, and in such good

condition.”

“How’d they manage that?” Sierra asked.

“Those Alexandrians were the cream of humanity, at that time,”

Thomas replied. “What a mix they were — Greek culture, by way of

Macedonia, situated in Egypt, under Roman rule by then. They had

literacy rates exceeding anything until our nineteenth century.

They had the basis of motion pictures, in persistence of vision

toys. They had gadgets that ran on steam. Heron of Alexandria

invented them both. And they apparently had ways of preserving

documents in airless containers. They survived oxidation, but not

the human stupidity that torched their great Library. But this one

got away.”

“Ok, so the manuscript is real, at least regarding the

creation of this copy in 400 CE. But how do we know that the

person who made that copy was just copying and not really

creating the fragment — and the larger story, whatever that may have been

— from scratch? Let’s face it, even if we knew for a fact that

Plato wrote it, that doesn’t mean the story is true. It could just

be another of Plato’s fictions — another tale of Atlantis, right?”

“Yes,” Thomas allowed. “All of those points are well taken.”

“Why did you ask me to look at this fragment, now?” Sierra

asked. She knew it wasn’t necessary to voice the end of the

sentence — “now, when I’m moving so well on my dissertation” —

because Thomas of all people understood that.

“I wanted you to think about this,” he replied, unhelpfully.

“Yes, but why now?”

“I’m going away, for a few days.”

She looked at him. His tone concerned her.

“I have an aneurysm near my heart — it’s likely no big deal.

But I had a by-pass and some digital reconstruction around the

area, so the operation could be a little tricky. There’s a new

hospital in Wilmington, Delaware, where they specialize in this.”

“How long … will you be gone?” Sierra asked.

“Just the weekend, probably,” Thomas replied. “So why don’t

you take that time to think about the fragment, decide if you’d

like to get any more involved in it …. I have complete confidence

that you’ll be able to get back to your dissertation and finish it

with distinction, if you decide to take a little breather on it,

first.”

***

She glanced fitfully at some of her notes for her dissertation

that evening. “Phoenician alphabet comes to Greece around

900 BCE … Greek alphabet written from right to left, like Semitic text,

900-600 BCE … after 600 BCE, Greeks write left to right, top to

bottom … 403 BCE, Ionic version of Greek alphabet used by

Athenians … spurt in literacy … approximately 400 BCE, Socrates

denounces the written word, according to Plato’s account in the

Phaedrus … 399 BCE, Socrates drinks the hemlock…”

She focused on the last four entries, underlining them,

circling them, in her mind. Those had always been the most

intriguing sections of her dissertation. The Ionic alphabet comes

to Athens, revolutionizes literacy there, aggravates Socrates but

not Plato — at least, not enough to stop Plato from writing — and

Socrates dies shortly after. Oh yeah, at the hands of the newly

restored Athenian democracy, perhaps energized, solidified,

by the written word. So Plato winds up hating democracy, because

it killed his beloved mentor, Socrates — or, actually, because

Socrates allowed the death sentence to be carried out, refused

Crito’s good offer of escape. And Plato, lover of the written

word, eventually crafts his masterpiece anti-democratic manifesto,

The Republic, inspiration for everything from the totalitarian

societies of the twentieth century to the Islamic “republics” and

the Far Eastern cyber-cities of the twenty-first — government by

the wisest, or at least those who deemed themselves the most

wise…Yeah, that had always been the most fascinating part of her

doctoral work, anyway, and now this damned untitled fragment

with a new look at the final hours of Socrates … Even if Thomas was

right about its 400 CE authenticity, it was likely no more than

some very early science fiction, myth-writing, anyway… But

damnit, that was almost as fascinating, in its own right…

She called Max. “How about we go away to my parents’ place

for the weekend? Bounce some ideas around?”

Max was available.

Then she called Thomas. But all possible numbers only yielded

all possible voicemails. She didn’t leave a message. That wasn’t

why she called. She just wanted to wish him well, tell him how much

he meant to her. She knew he would never have drawn her into this

fragment had his operation in Wilmington been assured of success.

***

Her parents had a little place on Sea Street, in Quivett Neck,

near the town of Dennis, on Cape Cod Bay. But they were wintering

on the Baltic Sea in NeoRome, formerly Romania. They had the

time.

Her father had been Chief of Detectives, NYPD, and had taken an

early retirement. Her mother was Professor of Mathematics at

Harvard, on sabbatical.

Sierra and Max arrived just in time to see a purple sunset

over the stippled grey-blue bay.

“So, did Socrates ever see anything as beautiful,” Max said

softly. He ran his hand through Sierra’s long dark hair.

“Probably,” she replied. “Piraeus has western views over

water…. Certainly Plato did. He travelled as far as Egypt,

after the death of Socrates, and spent lots of time in Sicily. He

had to have seen at least a few suns swallowed by the sea.”

“You almost expect to see the steam rise,” Max remarked.

“Yeah,” Sierra said. She turned to Max, stroked his face,

then turned back to the smoldering sunset, which had a slice of

orange floating in it now. “Do you think he took Andros up on the

offer?” she asked.

“In reality or in the story?”

“At this point, I’ll settle for the story.”

“Well, Socrates’ rejection of Crito’s escape plan seems pretty

deep-rooted,” Max said. “‘Suffering is a better response to evil

than committing another evil’ — didn’t Socrates say something like

that? And he thought running away was an evil.”

“According to Plato, that’s what Socrates thought.”

“It all goes back to Plato, doesn’t it,” Max said. “Any other

reliable contemporary accounts of Socrates’ death? I know

Aristophanes has a Socrates character in The Clouds and some of

his other comedies, but that’s a far cry from Socrates’ death.”

“Xenophon has a less dramatic, still mostly compatible

recounting of the trial and death,” Sierra said. “What Plato also

has going is that no one subsequent to him, close to that time,

contradicted his account. We’re talking Aristotle, Plato’s

student, who disagreed with his mentor about lots of other things.

Aristotle said nothing about the trial, one way or the other, but

says a lot about Socrates, and likely would have mentioned,

somewhere, any reliable accounts of the trial that contradicted

Plato’s. And, for that matter, there’s Alexander the Great, who was

Aristotle’s student.”

“Would help if you had a look at the rest of the manuscript.”

Sierra nodded.

“You think he’s holding out on you?”

Sierra considered. “Much as I admire him, I wouldn’t rule

that out completely.” She thought more about Thomas. Why would

he give her just a piece of a manuscript, if he had more? Didn’t make

sense. But, for that matter, none of this quite did.

***

By the end of the weekend, she had made a decision. Actually,

she had already mostly made it when she had decided to come up

to Cape Cod, with Max, to make the decision. Nothing like the sky

and sea and shore of the Cape — the north shore, the bay shore, at

least, for her — to help confirm the cosmic importance of things.

And this fragment and its implications were cosmic — at

minimum, a lot more profound, if any part of the fragment was

true, than anything she would be doing in her doctoral dissertation.

She called Thomas when she got back to her apartment on Sunday

evening. She doubted he would be in — he hadn’t been clear

about exactly when he would be returning from Wilmington.

There was no live voice, anywhere. She got the number of the

hospital in Wilmington, and tried that. No way Thomas would

be annoyed to hear from her.

“Professor Thomas O’Leary?” the computer repeated the name

Sierra had provided. “I’m sorry, but we have no patient under that

name in our hospital.”

“Perhaps he already checked out?”

“I’ll check,” the computer told her. “No, sorry, we have had

no patient under that name for the past ten years. Should I check

further back?”

“No…” Sierra opted instead for a human operator. About 20

minutes later, a Ms. Dobbins called her back. She sounded more

like a computer than the computer voice, but Sierra had no choice

but to take her word for her humanity. “Sorry,” Ms. Dobbins

confirmed the computer’s report, “I can verify that we have had no

patient under the name of Professor Thomas O’Leary, Professor

Tom O’Leary, and both names without the professor,

here at the hospital for the past ten years.”

***

So Thomas had lied to her about going to the hospital — or,

at very least, the hospital in Wilmington. Maybe he was at another

hospital. Maybe he was in Wilmington, but not in a hospital —

what attractions did Wilmington have, other than its new hospital,

its old theater district, and its superhub train station?

Maybe Thomas was neither in Wilmington nor in a hospital

anywhere. Why would he lie to her?

What else had he lied about?

The obvious thing was the manuscript. But why would he get her

going on that, only to put its veracity in doubt by telling her an

easily discoverable — self-revealing, in fact — lie about

something else, like going to a hospital in Wilmington, Delaware?

Perhaps something had happened to him, along the way. But she

would have heard, had it been anything bad — it would have made

some sort of news.

She pressed her head back into the sofa, and this time she

didn’t contest the sleep settings. She felt herself nodding off,

and realized she was about as uncomfortable as she had ever felt

in her life. Nothing like committing yourself to something, only to

have it cut out from under you a few hours later.

***

She awoke the next morning, repeated her rounds of calls to

Wilmington, the Old School, any place Thomas might have been.

She got the same result. No sign of Thomas O’Leary, anywhere.

She toyed with reporting him to Missing Persons. No, the most likely

explanation was still that he had lied to her, and there was no

point in bringing in the police about that…

She looked again at the manuscript, as she fixed her first

tea. Where had Thomas said this thing, or his copy of it, had been

recently residing, brought there by whomever?

The Millennium Club was on 49th Street, east of Fifth Avenue.

These clubs were famous for being extraordinarily protective of

their members — an oasis of civility in an age of omni-accessibility,

one of them had unfurled a new banner outside its entrance. This,

of course, had drawn a round or two of media attention. Not the

Millennium Club, but Sierra doubted that she, as a non-member,

would be given much more than the time of day there…

She considered … Hadn’t Max said something about the

Millennium Club a couple of days ago, when he had shown up at

her door a day early? Yeah, one of his profs had taken him to lunch

there — that meant the professor was almost certainly a member.

She called Max, told him about Thomas and her predicament.

One of the other things she liked about Max was that he

always accepted her phone calls. A rarity in this world

of allergies to omni-access.

“Goldshine? Sure, I’ll give him a call right now, and see

what I can find out for you.”

Her own phone rang a few minutes later. “Sierra Waters?” a

jovial voice inquired. “I’m Samuel Goldshine. Maxwell Marcus said

you’d like to talk to me about the Millennium Club?”

“Yes–”

“The best dissertation I read that decade. He’s a smart

fellow.”

“Yes–”

“You free for lunch today, at the Millennium Club, 1 pm?”

“Yes.”

***

“The food wasn’t always so good here,” Goldshine told Sierra,

smacking his lips after tasting the blueberry-cherry souffle. “The

Club finally relented and hired a new chef about six months ago —

I’ve heard nothing but compliments. Part of his secret is he’s

unafraid of using new genbrids. This blueberry-cherry is actually

a single fruit, as you probably know.”

Sierra nodded, savoring her raw cloysters, also a new species.

“Anyway, about your manuscript fragment, as Thomas O’Leary

probably told you, the Club was founded in 1879. So, hell, Mark

Twain could have smuggled it into the library — he was a member,

you know.”

Sierra washed down a tangy cloyster with ice cold ale.

“That’s why it would be great if we could speak with the Librarian,

Mr–”

“Charles, yes. His first name is Cyril, but I checked before

you arrived, and I couldn’t get a firm answer as to whether he’ll

be in today. Something about a sister, ill, in Baltimore– Ah,

Franklin, this is Ms. Waters, Thomas O’Leary’s student.”

A well dressed man, about fifty, had approached their table.

He bowed, slightly but graciously, in Sierra’s direction. “I have

definite word on Mr. Charles’ whereabouts,” he said to Goldshine.

“Oh, good,” Goldshine replied.

“Well, I’m afraid it is not very good, for your purposes

today, Professor. Mr. Charles is expected to be in Philadelphia,

with a sick sister, for the rest of the day.”

“Philadelphia? I thought it was Baltimore.”

“Philadelphia is what I was just told, Sir.”

“Ok, well, thank you, Franklin.”

Franklin bowed again, slightly, to Sierra and Goldshine, and

excused himself.

Goldshine looked after Franklin, then back at Sierra. “Well,

bad luck, but I can certainly show you the general place —

including the part of the Library where Mr. O’Leary says the

fragment was found.”

***

The Library was actually a series of libraries, elegantly

appointed, as the Victorians said, on the third and fourth floors.

The armchairs were burgundy, plush, and inviting. Maple tables of

varying dimensions were overflowing with various newspapers,

magazines, journals, some of which looked like they could have

been on the tables since 1879. And the books on the shelves were

phenomenal, to Sierra’s eyes … an autumn rainbow of rust, brown,

green, and red bindings that put her small collection of Appleton

editions of Darwin and Spencer that she had at home to shame.

But the nook of the Library that held Plato and his progeny

was the prize. Sierra recalled an old engraving she had come

across, as a child. It featured a man on a ladder against a

library wall of shelves marked METAPHYSIK, his nose in the pages

of an open book held in one hand, a second book in his other hand,

a third between his knees, a fourth between his elbow and waist…

Too many books, too little body …

Sierra felt that way now, although the only things she was

clutching were her hands–

“Can I be of assistance?” A deep voice inquired, with a trace

of a British accent. It was not Goldshine’s.

Sierra turned. A short, stocky, bald man smiled first at her,

then Goldshine.

The professor gave no indication of knowing the man. “Well,

yes … Ms. Waters, a student of Thomas O’Leary — a club member —

was wondering about a partial manuscript that apparently Mr.

Charles located here.”

The man scrunched his face. “What sort of manuscript would

that be?”

“Oh, yes, sorry, it was a piece of a Platonic dialog,

apparently unknown until now, and … look, well, I know it sounds

crazy–”

“The dialog with Socrates and Andros, taking place,

presumably, right after Crito has taken his leave–”

“Yes!” Sierra burst out. “I mean, you know it?”

“Of course I do. Mr. Charles indeed discovered it. We know

it wasn’t here during the last cleaning, that would have been

nineteen years ago, in 2023. Mr. Charles knew just what to do with

it — he took it out for a proper scientific appraisal, which

confirmed the authenticity of the ink, from the late Alexandrian

era, about 400 AD, if memory serves …. Oh, my apologies,

talking about memory, I forgot to introduce myself! I spend so much

time in the back stacks that I forget how to behave among people.

I’m Mr. Bertram. A Millennium Librarian, like Mr. Charles.”

“Professor Samuel Goldshine, member since 2026.” Goldshine

extended his hand. “A pleasure.”

Mr. Bertram took the hand, shook it, briefly.

“Do you know anything more about the fragment,” Sierra

pressed, “how it got to be here, who else knows about it other than

you, Mr. Charles, Thomas O’Leary?”

“Oh, well any member could know about it, of course,” Bertram

answered. “We don’t keep any of our holdings secret from the

members.”

“Do you know who else Mr. Charles or you talked to about this,

in addition to Mr. O’Leary?” Sierra tried a slightly different tack.

But this drew disapproving looks from both Bertram and

Goldshine. “Those who serve the Club would never reveal such

details,” Goldshine advised. “Why, at the beginning of the 21st

century, the Club even stood up to a Federal subpoena once, and

refused to divulge its members’ reading habits!” he concluded,

proudly.

“I can show you the other piece,” Bertram offered. “That is,

I can show it to Professor Goldshine, and if he doesn’t mind your

reading over his shoulder–”

“Yes, thank you–” Sierra said.

“That would be grand, thank you,” Goldshine said at the same

time.

“Do you know if Mr. O’Leary knows about–,” Sierra began, but

stopped as soon as she saw the beginning of the return of the stern

looks. “Thank you,” she simply said again, to both men. “This

means a lot to me.”

***

She sat next to Goldshine at a small, cherry maple desk. A

green banker’s light provided warm illumination. Sierra reckoned

it was the real thing, not a repro, likely from the 1920s.

Bertram returned a few minutes later with a folder. He handed

it to Goldshine, smiled slightly at him, then her, and left.

Goldshine opened it. There were two groups of papers, each

clipped together. Goldshine picked up the first, looked through it

briefly, then handed it to Sierra.

It was the same fragment which Thomas had provided. Sierra

picked up the second. “Ok if I read this?” she asked Goldshine.

“By all means,” he said, and busied himself with the first.

Sierra turned to the second. It was smaller than the first,

and apparently did not begin where the first left off.

SOC. The time is not sufficient. Even if I were inclined to agree with your proposition, which I am not, the ship from Delos with the priest of Apollo will be here in a day or two, after which I am bound to follow the wishes of the Athenians. And, surely, one or two days is not enough to grow a full-bodied likeness of a man.

ANDR. That is true, Socrates. Even with the special craft the people of my time and place possess — the life-growing craft I have described to you — one day would not be enough to grow a man. But believe me, O’ Socrates, there exists a yet deeper craft, which makes that one day, any given amount of time, irrelevant for our purposes.

SOC. What is this deeper craft?

ANDR. It is part of craft through which I have arrived here, from a future world, a future time.

SOC. Ah, the godly craft, the unknown craft, which you have yet to explain to me. Are you saying that this craft gives you the power, as it is claimed for some gods, to make time stand still for some events, but move forward for others?

ANDR. Yes, that is similar to what I am saying. But in my world, such power is reality, not myth.

SOC. But you are in my world now, are you not?

ANDR. True. But by virtue of my being here, you are in my world too, are you not, Socrates?

SOC. Yes, I would agree. If indeed you come from another world. But, then, tell me, how in your world, or in the connection between your world and mine, could time stop in such a way as to allow a man to grow seventy years in a day?

ANDR. I will try. Let us say that, by the process of branching we were talking about earlier, a part of you could be moved to the future, and placed in a soil such that the branch could grow into a complete, living likeness of you. Now, whether that growth took one day or seventy years would not matter, as long as our two worlds remained connected, and as long as your part of the connection, your world, the place and time in which we are conversing, at this moment, was this very time.

SOC. You are saying you could return to your world and time, and then return here, at this very time, before you left, and there would be two entities of you this instant in this room?

ANDR. Yes, that would be possible. Though I would try not to do that.

SOC. And you could return with a living replica of me, which took even seventy years to grow, as long as at the conclusion of that seventy years, the path to this time and place, from that future world to this room, shortly after the break of this dawn, in which you and I now converse, at this very moment, remained open?

ANDR. Yes, that is what I am suggesting.

SOC. And, if that were truly possible, all you would need to complete your plan would be a branch, as we have been describing it, of me.

I am honored to present the 1st edition of the Chapter One series on The Words Palette. Author Paul Levinson has graciously granted permission to present the first chapter of his latest hit novel THE PLOT TO SAVE SOCRATES for the series debut.

The Words Palette will post the full first chapter at 6 a.m., Monday, December 4th. You also have the option to download the first chapter as a pdf format and read at your convenience. If you are a first time visitor, please subscribe to any of the blog’s feeds at the right side bar or by clicking the email subscription link. By doing so you will never miss new posts as they are published.

It gets better. If you’d like to listen to the first chapter, Mr. Levinson has also granted the whole first chapter, as read by the author, to appear on The Sound Palette, also being published at the same time tomorrow. See, we care.

If you have questions, please email me at

emon@wordspalette.com

Here’s what other folks in the media world said about ‘PLOT,’ now in its 3rd printing. (extracted from the author’s website)

Entertainment Weekly magazine calls it “challenging fun”… EW is the leading entertainment magazine in the US with over 2 million copies in circulation each week!

A thoughtful new review by Colin Harvey on StrangeHorizons.com says “There’s a delightfully old-fashioned feel to The Plot to Save Socrates… Levinson’s cool, spare style reminded me of the writing of Isaac Asimov… The Plot to Save Socrates is a book that will bear repeated rereading.”

A STARRED review in Library Journal says… “…Levinson spins a fascinating tale that spans the centuries from 400 B.C.E. to 2061 C.E. and ranges from ancient Greece and Egypt to Victorian London and future New York. An intriguing premise with believable characters and attention to period detail make this an outstanding choice… Highly recommended.”

Brian Charles Clark’s detailed and enjoyable review (be aware, a few surprise plot points are revealed!) on Curled Up With a Good Book says The Plot to Save Socrates “resonates with the current political climate” and he finds “a bite to Levinson’s wit”… and he notes that “heroine Sierra Waters is sexy as hell”…

Pamela Sargent’s SciFi Weekly review calls it “highly original,” “conscientiously researched and well rendered,” “emotionally satisfying and extremely moving.” She concludes, “The Plot to Save Socrates will provoke thought long after readers have finished the book, at which point many may want to pick it up and read it again, to savor its twists and turns.”

Tom Easton, writing in Analog magazine, calls The Plot to Save Socrates “very satisfying… a tour de force…” and he says “Watch for it on award ballots.”

Kristin Gray, in the Davis, California, Enterprise says the book is “fast-paced and full of plot twists”…

And this from Gavin Grant in Bookpage: “Itï¿½s obvious that Levinson had a lot of fun and did a lot of research to write this book, and readers are sure to enjoy his take on the paradoxes of time travel.”

Thomas M. Wagner, writing on sfreviews.net, raves about “this yummy little pretzel of a story” … calling it “deliriously mind-boggling time travel… Paul Levinson’s The Plot to Save Socratesis a rare example of a novel actually thriving on paradoxes… daring with both its ideas and its approach to narrative structure… It’s an absolute treat to sit back and be wrapped up in a story that gives a retro SF premise like time travel such a brilliant new kick, and it’s doubly delightful to find the story as fun and entertaining as it is thought-provoking. Brain candy and brain vegetables, all in one serving. … I just have to recommend the book to any and every SF reader looking for something truly original for a change.”

Book.of.the.moment says “I’ve never read anything like this before… The Plot to Save Socrates is highly original, creative, and engaging. I enjoyed it from the first page.”

Publisher’s Weekly calls it a “light, engaging time travel yarn” and says “…by the surprise end, Levinson succeeds in tying the main narrative together in a way that neatly satisfies the circularity inherent in time travel, whose paradoxes he links to Greek philosophy…”

Booklist says “The plot twists across itself, filling the book with paradoxes and potential paradoxes in total disregard for linear time, betrayal, and plotting. In the end, Socratesï¿½ fate and Androsï¿½ motivations and identity conclude a quick-to-read, entertaining treatment of the problems inherent in time travel with style and flair.”